Opinion

A vote to build the George Snyder Trail (GST) was pushed through last June despite significant community and Council opposition.  Whatever your position on the project, you may be interested to learn that the June vote was based on misinformation. Council had been told by the acting city manager and his staff, in no uncertain terms, that the City would have to pay back $3.7 million if the project was canceled. This is simply not true. 

Public Hearing on Willard Sherwood Sept 30th.   City of Fairfax needs to live within its means.  The Willard Sherwood will cause 20 years of big debt! This single project will add at least $8.1M to our operating budget over the next two decades. Each penny on the tax rate generates about $835,000 – this is a 9.7-cent increase for the Willard Sherwood.  Our portion for the base building alone is right around $52M, plus an additional $3M for underground parking for a grand total of: $54,930,000.  There is also an additional $4M Performing Arts Option.

I disagree that there is an effort to stop the construction of the GST. I have been attending and speaking out at city council meetings regularly since 2023, and have met no one who is against implementing some bike trail connectivity between Route 123 and Fair Woods Pkwy, and east to connect with Draper Dr. at Fairfax Blvd. The choice is not a bike trail or not; it’s a question of the footprint of the GST.

The rationale for building an over $21.M, 1.7-mile through-the-woods George Snyder Trail (GST) is falling apart. Initially, the purpose of the GST was to get people from Point A to Point B and support local businesses along Fairfax Boulevard. How does a through-the-woods trail away from businesses do that? How does the less expensive alternative design concept, which creates a shared-use path along Eaton Place and Fairfax Boulevard, not do that?

In late November, I sat in Arlington County Courthouse's courtroom 10A and witnessed a scene that left me deeply unsettled as a veteran defense attorney. A young prosecutor, Abhimanyu Mehta—whose name fittingly translates to "warrior" in the mythological Mahābhārata story about war—stood before Judge Daniel S.  Fiore advocating for the dismissal of charges against a young black man, 31, whom I’ll refer to pseudonymously as Ross Lamas. Charged in late 2022 with one count of felony intent to distribute drugs and four counts of illegal possession of a firearm, Mr. Lamas’ case had been delayed multiple times over two years. Lamas sat quietly with his public defender, Brad Haywood, waiting for what should have been a routine resolution.

For those of you who were re-elected to office, you will recall my deep concern with all of the changes imposed upon Mosby Woods, from street renamings, to conversion of our neighborhood street to a neighborway, to an asinine proposal to construct a roundabout at the entrance to our neighborhood on a road which terminates in our neighborhood, to installing signs and reflective  posts all up and down Fair Woods Parkway. These efforts were done in an attempt to facilitate bicycle traffic from the George Snyder Trail through our neighborhood to the other key points including the Vienna metro station. All along, we were told how important the neighborway was to the trail network, to bicyclists, and to overall connectivity.